Despite the Democratic Party’s efforts to turn the public against the Trump administration, the president’s approval ratings are the best they’ve ever been.
Forty-nine percent of registered voters approve of Trump, according to a new Gallup poll released Tuesday. This is Trump’s personal best, and it’s also good news for the president’s reelection efforts: More than half of registered voters surveyed said they’d like to see Trump reelected in November.
The Democratic base is still vehemently opposed to Trump. Meanwhile, more than 90% of Republicans approve of the president. And somewhere in the middle are the voters uninterested in the back-and-forth partisanship, many of whom will play an instrumental role in deciding the 2020 election.
Congressional Democrats seem to understand they’re losing the battle for public opinion, especially with regard to impeachment. When House Democrats first made their case against Trump, they warned that the American public, supported by “history” itself, would judge Republicans harshly if they did not impeach Trump. Fast-forward several weeks and multiple negative polls later, and the Democrats’ argument against Trump sounds more like a plea than a reliable threat.
“He is not who you are,” House impeachment manager Adam Schiff told Senate Republicans, referencing Trump. “Truth matters to you. Right matters to you. You are decent. … If you find the courage to stand up to him, to speak the awful truth to his rank falsehood, your place will be among the Davids who took on Goliath.”
The Democrats overestimated the public’s disapproval of Trump because they listened too closely to their immediate base. The growing left wing of the Democratic Party demanded Trump’s impeachment, so party leaders caved, knowing full well that a backlash could occur. And sure enough: The swing states began to waver one month into impeachment while support for impeachment grew among Democratic voters. Party leaders either didn’t see this divide for what it was or they deliberately ignored it.
Many of those swing voters are now settling down in Trump’s camp, according to this Gallup poll. This means Trump won’t just survive impeachment: He might very well win it. Aided by a strong economy and a stable market, Trump’s favorability is growing despite Democrats’ attempts to weaken it.
Trump still has a long way to go. He lost the popular vote in 2016, and unless his standing significantly changes in the next few months, he might lose it again. But he is on the upswing, which proves Democrats wrong: Americans haven’t quite figured out what to do about the man in the White House, but they’re not willing to let Democrats decide for them.
